Summary:

In TSIS " The American Dream: Dead, Alive, Or on Hold?" author Brandon King redefines the American Dream as the potential to work for an honesty secure way of life and save for the future.  King's redefinition affects his argument saying "Is the American Dream still around, waiting to be achieved by those who work hard enough, or is it effectively dead, killed off by the Great Recession and the economic hardships that many Americans have come to face?  Brandon King believes that the ideals and value of he American Dream are still alive. American Dream used to be owning expensive items such as cars, homes, and more material wealth. But, as of today one can focus on saving moey for the future and having a secure employment. American Dream of today is a trimmed down version of its former self.

Response:

I agree with Brandon King because I see in today society not many people owning houses but instead they rather have a secure employment and plenty of saving for the future.  So many people are renting instead of buying house, limit their spending, and own less expensive items.

Small Change: Why the Revolution Will not be Tweeted

Summary: In this article “Small Change” by Malcolm Gladwell begins with a protest started by 4 African-American college students. One of the students ordered a coffee of which the waitress replied with, “Sorry we don’t serve Negro here,” where the four students decided to stand their ground and ignore all threats. Many days later the protest expanded from four people to a somewhat seventy thousand people, running from North Carolina all the way to west Texas. This whole protest happened in the early 1960’s, where acts like this were considered a civil-rights war, and the entire time this happened, they did it without e-mail, texting, Facebook, or Twitter. This is what an act of activism looks like, something we don’t see very often in today’s media. Mark Pfeifle , former national-security advisor, suggested that Twitter allows the shy and unheard be noticed and heard, and later nominated Twitter for the Nobel Peace Prize. Back to the original protest of 1964, it is stated that the four students, during the first few days, were given death threats but refused to moved, even without the knowledge of the threats being bluffs or not. Everything that happened back with those college students are most likely not to happen in today’s social media, for to many people believe everything they see on the internet.

Respond:I can’t imagine how those students took place during the activism during that time period because there was no so called social media as of today, ever where you go you’ll see people with social media device in hand.  Social media has brought people around the world to come together, shared information, news around the world, can see what’s going on in our community.